Go Figure: Health Care Needs 42 Sign-Ups a Minute

WASHINGTON (AP) — If the Obama administration's health care plan is going to pass what amounts to its first physical, people have to sign up this month at a pretty speedy rate: 42 times a minute.

That's somewhere between the steady rate you breathe and how fast your heart beats.

Someone has to sign up every 1.4 seconds in March for the Obama administration to reach its 6 million sign-up goal. Enrollment season ends March 31 and as of March 1, sign-ups were at 4.2 million.

The government needs 1.8 million sign-ups in the 30 days between March 2 and March 31, officials said. That's 60,000 a day or 2,500 per hour. That's way more than the daily averages for January and February, which ranged between 33,000 and 34,000.

To put it in health terms, the average healthy adult at rest takes 12 to 18 breaths per minute. The average adult pulse is between 60 and 100 beats per minute at rest. Highly trained athletes can get their heart rate below 50 beats per minute.

It takes about a minute to read this. If the Obama administration wants to hit its goal, another 42 people had to sign up in that time.